Officials were warned twelve years in advance about potential safety hazards at the Oroville Dam in Butte County, California, which now faces the risk of flooding nearby residential areas as a result of a broken spillway and increased rainfall.

“Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.”

That never happened. The aging Oroville dam, which exceeded capacity on Sunday, began to overflow and spill over the earthen emergency spillway after the main spillway was severely damaged. These developments prompted flood warnings and a declaration of a state of emergency from Governor Jerry Brown. The spillway is on the verge of collapse, a potential disaster that prompted mass evacuations. Over 188,000 residents have been displaced.

The environmental groups’ 2005 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expressed concern over the exact situation at risk of unfolding now. They warned that in the “event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as ‘loss of crest control.’”

According to Ron Stark, policy director with Friends of the River, “We said ‘are you really sure that running all this water over the emergency spillway won’t cause the spillway to fail?’ They tried to be as evasive as possible. It would have cost money to build a proper concrete spillway.”

Indeed, FERC dismissed their filing “after the state Department of Water Resources, and the water agencies that would likely have had to pay the bill for the upgrades, said they were unnecessary.”

Though by Sunday evening officials reported water was no longer spilling over the emergency spillway, they are continuing to release water through the regular, damaged spillway at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second, which they claim is consistent with “normal flood control releases.” Footage from local affiliate Fox40 shows the Feather River, which is receiving much of the water releases, is brimming. They report it “looks more like a lake today,” though for now, officials say Feather River remains below flood stage.

According to Fox40, officials with the Department of Water Resources say “they have not been able to access the area on the emergency spillway that has been eroded.”

Officials are scrambling to continue clearing water and repairing the damaged spillway, as more storms are expected on Wednesday and Thursday.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said officials are working on a “repopulation plan” for evacuated residents, though they offered no time table, asserting instead they will allow people to return when it is safe.

Regardless of the outcome, the ongoing incident has undoubtedly demonstrated gaping flaws with the methods government agencies use to maintain aging infrastructure.

The “Anti” in our name does not mean we are against the media, we are simply against the current mainstream paradigm. The current media, influenced by the industrial complex, is a top-down authoritarian system of distribution—the opposite of what Anti-Media aims to be. At Anti-Media, we want to offer a new paradigm—a bottom-up approach for real and diverse reporting. We seek to establish a space where the people are the journalists and a venue where independent journalism moves forward on a larger and more truthful scale.

“Regardless of the outcome, the ongoing incident has undoubtedly
demonstrated gaping flaws with the methods government agencies use to
maintain aging infrastructure.”

The most gaping flaw is the undeniable fact that bureaucrats exist solely to protect the bureaucracy.

NonYo Business

Hear hear!!!

William St. George

Over half of CA’s well over one thousand dams should they fail would result in human fatalities and much property loss. It would cost billions to upgrade just the dams. Last year CA spent about 25 billion dollars on persons who have no legal right to be in CA. So CA citizens are potentially being sacrificed to the illegal aliens! Who is making this decisions? Corporations and the governments. And not for altruistic reasons. However, the interested Persons are going to dress their selfish actions up as those of compassion. It is time for the citizens of CA to do some careful research and make changes.

t0066jh

So “right on”. Unfortunately this is what happens when liberalism reaches it’s peak. a constitutional Republic is lost and a pure, majority rules Democracy takes over and votes itself “free stuff” while ignoring infrastructure and public safety and health. Chaos comes next unless CA get’s some sense or the Feds take over. Neither of these are very good alternatives.

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Debradwatt

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t0066jh

UNSUBSCRIBE

David

California has had many chances to maintain & repair their dams with money they use for sanctuary cities, protecting Illegal “Criminal” Immigrants.